"Cleverness is not wisdom.”

- Euripides

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Clever. It’s just a simple word, just six letters; you hear it all the time. For all the little quips you spout and all those pranks you play, you hear the word ‘clever’ and then you’re hauled off to detention.

You hate the word. It’s come to symbolize everything that’s wrong with you; you can’t pay attention long, so you don’t get to be smart, all you get are smart ass words. You get glares and you get ‘clever’. For every mistake and every cock up you get ‘clever’.

Long ago you decided that you didn’t want ‘clever’, you were done with it; you’d never hear it again.

It follows you though, and while now they mean ‘clever’ as a good thing, a compliment, it still isn’t ‘brilliant’ and it still carries hints of memories full of failure with it.

It’s an abominable monster of a word best stricken from the dictionary. All the same though, you are ‘clever’, and you are a failure.